How to break women's hold over you
by LockDown
Summary: Men, ever wonder why you always agree to everything your girl asks you to do? I know the reason and I'm telling the world so us males will have a fighting chance against all those troublesome women. I mean, they should agree with us now and again. Right?


Gentlemen, I'm going to tell you the secret that will totally destroy a woman's power over you that makes you agree to anything. The only problem with this secret is that most men don't have the intestinal fortitude to do what is necessary to break the spell that women hold over them. That is to say; stay conscious and focused during the post-coital snuggling. Most of us simply submit to the biology, roll over and quickly fall asleep.

Women know this. They know that in that window of time after your mind is all hazy and drowsy they can and do suggest anything they want and you agree to it. With their mission achieved they get whatever they wanted and the only way not to do whatever you unwittingly agreed to do is to be put into the dog house for a little while. That of course is just too troublesome.

However, if you have the rare and magical ability to keep your wits about you, you can turn the tables on your lady and do some very troublesome things. Things like making stunning revelations, end relationships or propose. If you're really good, you can do all three at once.

I suppose I should set the scene a little more. Let me start with myself. Chunin of the Leaf, genuine genius with an IQ over 200, only Genin to be promoted during the Sound-Sand invasion, instructor at the academy, lazy cloud watcher and escort of the Suna ambassador every time she comes to town.

That's right, _**SHE**_ is the cause of all my problems. It's her fault. Always has been. It's her fault she has so much damned pride. It was that pride that made me decide to give up that match. I think you know which one I'm talking about. She wanted so very much not to lose to someone she thought was weaker than her (me) or whose skills were more a novelty (my shadow possession jutsu). Okay, I might have thought she was rather cute looking, not that I let that influence my decision to give up at all.

It was her pride that made her seek me out later. Because of that I found out she was actually very intelligent, which of course took her out of my original criteria for my wife. She was also older by 3 years. Another X against her. Very good looking and well rounded shall we say. I have actually heard my mother tell my father that she approved of her figure, though mostly because mother dearest was thinking more about grandchildren. Very scary thought. So smoking hot and mother approved of her, two more red flags. Never mind she was a nin from another country. That was her only plus because it meant she was utterly unobtainable, never mind she is the Kazekage's older sister. That makes her almost like royalty and I'm for far out of her league it's not even funny.

Well I'm me. I have the teaching job as a cover but I probably know more about my home village and everything we do then the Hokage. Well maybe not but close. You don't get my level of security clearance and not know a lot of things. Or it might be because I know a lot of things I have my level of security clearance. By the time I was 17 I probably knew more secrets than any human being has the right to know. Which brings me to the crux of it all.

I'm not stupid. That's just a fact. Neither is she. Neither are the Hokage and Kazekage. So it made the normally dangerous game known as the life of a shinobi into the kind of games I like to play. Ones with real world consequences involving people who don't even know they are players. Like the Kages. They play their little game of being nice with each other. Nice enough that Suna sends over an ambassador that shows up every two months for a week long stay. That ambassador does and number of things but we all know her real purpose. Spying politely and with a smile in the open. Enter me. The counter measure. The nicely termed escort which I always thought made me sound like a call boy. Not that I don't make a nice piece of arm candy.

While she pokes around and made friends I could always be seen by her side while she was in town. And she kept coming back. I made sure of it. While she might have build up reports with some of the other girls in town and learned tidbit from them, I always made sure I would let something of value slip out during our many conversations. It was always accurate information but not overly secret information. I mean what good is a crop harvest estimate really worth to those in Suna. Not much other than a heads up for food prices the coming year. I'm sure she would play up any information she got from me just as I played up anything she let slip.

And it was my job to make her slip up. Since we didn't have an ambassador going to Suna, our diplomatic espionage was me. For a week every two months. Got me relieved of my cover and my actual duties barring major disaster so I didn't mind at all. Not that I had a crush on her. Or liked her. Dreamed about her. Had her on my mind every minute of the day. Most definitely not.

Things were a little awkward when I was about 17. I had known about girls for a while but never really was interested because she wasn't a girl but a young woman when I first met her. When she met me, I was still a boy. Then I started to become a man and she noticed. Suddenly I'm taller than her and cut like a statue. Not that most shinobi aren't fit but love makes you really focus on what you want. Did I say love, I meant to say attraction. Infatuation. Um, likingness? I don't think that is even a word.

Point being she started to like me back. I mean like me. For her to like me back I would have had to like her in the first place. Moving on. It was really cute actually. Because of how the Chunin exams were working she hadn't come for four months this time around as she was busy preparing her first (and only team, all Jounin have to train one team, just another reason never to make that rank) of Genin for the exams. So when she came with her team I had gone through a major growth spurt that made me taller than her. She introduced me to her team and we had a very civil conversation and I walked away. She must had gotten very absorbed in my ass because I heard one of her students say, "He has a fine ass, doesn't he sensei?" And the kicker is she absentmindedly agreed.

I, of course, ran off as quickly as I could so I could do two things; laugh my ass off, and calm my heart rate down. Being the professionals we were we did the grown up thing and avoided each other entirely for the duration of those exams. Her team was promoted and our crazy relationship returned to normal. Somewhat.

Remember how I said I like real life games. Well our very real version of Spy vs. Spy took a twist I thought was worth investigating. The next time she came to town we barely talked in private. In public you would have thought everything was fine but that week we didn't have the usual late night shogi games or the quiet afternoons having tea and chatting. So day six of her stay came and I hadn't let anything slip and it was getting to her. She was far more angry and frustrated than usual, even equating her PMS, which any man knows about if only to preserve his own life. Her lovely pride was eating away at her and I had watched it do its work over the last few days. She had a perfect record of always bringing something back to her brother and as much as she would have loved to shake me until I did say something she couldn't. She was the ambassador, she was suppose to be nice and diplomatic.

I let something slip. After I did she became much more relaxed and more normal. However, my curiosity had been quirked. A small part of me wondered a few things. A: why did I feed her information? B: why did the Hokage let me get away with it? C: Was she only friendly with me because I fed her information?

A: I was at a loss. B: Probably because I got just as much as I gave. C. C had me worried. If I had been as smart about it as I should have been I would have cut off all of her tentacles before they had taken firm hold of my heart. Being foolish and blinded by emotions I merely set about making sure my tentacles did the same as hers. And in that I got an answer to C.

The next time she came, I greeted her, took her to the embassy and gave her the tidbit and we had a smashing awesome week. She didn't have need to be stressed out more than normal so the visit was a good one. The next week she gave me my tidbit right after I had offered mine. At this point we both knew what we were doing but we both silently agreed to get duty out of the way and just enjoy our time together. This built up over the next year to the point where we'd exchange information at the gate, in front of god and everyone else. That way we could actually enjoy the walk to the embassy instead of make it feel like a death march.

Somewhere in those walks we took to holding hands. Then we were holding hands all the time, not just on walks. Soon after kisses. Mostly her lips to my cheek but still nice. Full contact kissing didn't happen until I was 19. Long time to wait for a kiss. Thankfully, being the Kazekage's sister had kept her just as inept about everything that involved kissing and beyond so the playing field was rather level. I found it rather amusing though when all the other girls in town would go to her for advice. Since she was older everyone assumed she had some experience though I knew otherwise.

Not long after the real kissing started things stalled again. We hit another moment in time when we should have both admitted how we used each but we completely ignored that part of the problem. The problem was that she invited me in for coffee. I don't drink coffee and she knows it but I also heard the second meaning in it.

We were on the terrace of the embassy. Somehow a pattern had formed where I never went into the embassy and she never came into my apartment. Those were our safe zones away from each other. Everywhere else was fair game. I panicked really and looked for an out.

"Do you invite a lot of guys in for coffee?" Low blow I know but I was partially curious. I mean I didn't know until later that we were each other's first in everything.

"What?! No! I…" Silence. "You can either come inside or not."

"It's a nice night out. I think I'll stay out here."

"Fine then."

The rest of her stay was cold, distant. Very unpleasant. After she left everyone wanted to know if we had gotten into a fight. Being who we were, we were a huge public secret. One everyone knew about. Brain of one village going out with the wind princess of another. Very dangerous real life game but no one ever told us no. In fact they were very concerned that we might not get back together after the fight. I got so much sympathy from everyone is was sickening. Everyone except my mother who was rightly pissed off that I had let a perfectly good daughter-in-law get away. Thanks for being supportive mom.

I fixed things though. I really did. The next time she arrived I met her at the gate and did two things. One was give her the tidbit. That was a standard exchange by this point. The second part I have graciously cleaned up and made short and sweet for this record. You will not get the satisfaction of having me embarrass myself again by bumbling over every word. Nor will get to hear her stuttered replies. Instead you get the edited version that save face for both of us. If you want the fun version, track down the guards who were on duty that day. They might tell you if you can provide protection against my wife and myself.

"I want to apologize about the other night."

"Oh?"

"I've never drank coffee before and I panicked. Sorry."

"I've never drank coffee either."

"Would you like to join me for some?"

"Are you pouring?

"Yes."

"Your place or mine?

"Mine."

That's the closest thing to saying "I love you" either of us has ever said. I knew from then on she did love me and I her, even if we never said it. You could see it in her eyes. They train us to mask our emotions on our faces but you can't mask your eyes.

That all happened a few years ago. At first she kept using the embassy to keep up appearances but after a while she just didn't bother anymore. She stayed at my place and that became acceptable. She told me her brothers almost had a cow while mom couldn't have been more ecstatic.

Finally though I grew tired of it all. Tired of only having her for seven days even eight weeks. Tired of the fact that we were using each other to help keep our relationship alive. Tired of not having said those words out loud enough though it has been years since we started sharing bed. And so I forced the issue. I stayed awake and aware as she burrowed into my side to cuddle.

"We need to stop this game."

"What game?"

"The game where we trade secrets and then fuck each other. I'm tired of it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh don't be coy. You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Your brother probably keeps sending you to me because I've been stupid and given up so many secrets."

"It's not like you don't get anything back. I tell you things I should as well."

"And you aren't tired of being on an extended seduction mission?"

With that shot I felt the room get colder. It wasn't really nice of me but I was tired of it all. It ended tonight.

"You think I've been seducing you as a mission?"

"Haven't you?"

"No. Anything I've done has been on my own vocation. You're the only one I've left serve me coffee."

Ah the coffee. She was good at that. But I wanted more than just coffee. I wanted her.

"Same here but I want more than just coffee. I want milk, sugar, and even those damned biscuits. I want all of it. Not just the coffee. So if coffee is all you're serving then you can tell your brother this is a dead end."  
"You don't think I want those things too?"

I stalled. If she wanted those things as well then things just might work out.

"Marry me."

"What?"

"If you want those things too, marry me."

"Okay."

See what you can do if you catch women off guard. You too can get them to agree to just about anything. Sadly they grow immune very quickly while we never gain an immunity. If only I had asked her not to be so troublesome.

A/N: Inspired by Mr. and Mrs. Nara, a trailer I saw on Youtube about Mr. and Mrs. Smith. A little weird I know but there you go. I tried my hardest not to use any names in this but just to be sure people get it, this is ShikaTema. Also I'm proud of my coffee metaphor. I don't care if you don't like it, I'm proud of that simple accomplishment. Thus wraps up a 24 hour period in which I have completed this and the companion piece to my other ShikaTema work, Memoirs. Go read. But first review.


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